The major ad-supported, commercial IM networks have many times attempted to block multi-protocol clients through rapid small changes to their protocols. However, the relentless efforts by multi-protocol clients developers to restore the interoperability between these networks eventually made them realize that they could not oppose the development of multi-protocol clients anyway.

Main advantage of multiprotocol IM clients is that it provides an unified interface using witch one can login to multiple IM networks such as AOL IM, Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk etc

There are many such multi-protocol IM clients out there. Here are the best ones that you could try. We will keep updating this post for more IM clients like Adium, iChat and Proteus for Mac OS soon.

Multi-protocol IM clients

Instant Messaging – Digsby is a multiprotocol IM client that lets you chat with all your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber with one simple to manage buddy list.

E-mail notification – Digsby is an email notification tool that alerts you of new email and lets you perform actions such as ‘Delete’ or ‘Report Spam’ with just one click.

Social Networking – Digsby is a social networking tool that alerts you of events like new messages and gives you a live Newsfeed of what your friends are up to.

Pidgin (for Windows and Linux), formerly known as Gaim, is a multi-platform instant messaging client. The software has support for many commonly used instant messaging protocols, allowing the user to log into various different services from one application. It is popular and had 3 million users in 2007.

VoxOx (for Windows and Mac OS) is a next generation IM client where you get a comprehensive call functionalities with “One-Number Follow-Me” feature. You can have a single VoxOx number identity, you can make all your phone numbers ring when someone calls your VoxOx number, call forwarding to any PSTN phone is another advantage. VoxOx is sure to bring in all the features of Unified Communications in the coming releases. Besides this, It allows sending text messages to selected mobile operators in the US, integrates with major social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, and enables flexibility for integrating existing and future applications due to its open standards platform. Currently, AIM, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo, ICQ and other XMPP based networks.

Gathera (for windows) organizes and integrates Web applications and services into the browser sidebar and offers an easy user experience to you. Gathera is completely FREE for use. You can now seamlessly share, view, and respond to many types of social content across multiple online services.

Trillian is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application for Windows created by Cerulean Studios that can connect to multiple IM services, such as AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC etc. Trillian Pro has support for Novell’s GroupWise messenger, Jabber etc. However, Trillian Pro costs 25$. Do check if you really need this becasue IMs like Pidgin, Miranda offer a lot for free!

Image source: All logos have been taken from their respective official websites.